A Nigma

The last day of fieldwork at our railway site - after a grey and damp start it turned suprisingly hot and humid. We arrived back just in time to produce a red thai fish curry for dinner, before going to the Key Studio Comedy Club. It's the first time I've been and it was a great success - certainly something to be repeated during the autumn and winter.

To reduce weight in my backpack, I hadn't taken my camera to our site, but Pete bought back several specimens of this tiny, but quite stunning spider, which I photographed. Nigma walckenaeri, also known as The Green Mesh Weaver, was first recorded in Britain at Box Hill and Kew in the late 19th century. It's spreading northwards and is now quite frequently recorded in the Midlands.

It's found on bushes in gardens and parks often in suburban areas, but also on scrub in more natural habitats. The spider spins a small web and retreat on the upper surface of leaves of bushes. The leaves of lilac, forsythia, holly and ivy are especially favoured but any leaves are used with a similar size and curved surface across which the web can be made. This is the male, who is somewhat more brightly coloured than the entirely green female.